New denial-of-service attack aimed directly at Healthcare.gov

If it's that controversial why isn't anyone filing court cases against it? That's the proper way to challenge the constitutionality of a law, not by speculation on blogs or misconstruing the facts on cable news shows.

From your question, I have to assume that either you don't live in the United States, are you're an uninformed citizen. Many legal challenges to the ACA have been filed. Otherwise, why would the Supreme Court have issued a ruling?

I understand that there have been many files against the ACA, I was referencing the decision of the SCOTUS -- why isn't that being challenged. Regardless, your point stands.

The Supreme Court is the court of last resort. There is literally no judicial venue in which to appeal their decision. That's why focus turns toward Congress.

The opinions (consenting or dissenting) of the judges exist by design. Their purpose is to frame the scope of the decision, to emphasize the main reasons for the decision, to reveal aspects of the issue that may need legal clarification from another perspective; and to affirm, weaken, broaden, narrow or refine previous legal interpretations or related law and principles.

That's not to say that the ACA can't be overturned (or limited) in the future. American law is full of examples of that. With 1,200 pages, you better believe certain features of the law will find their way to the Supreme Court again.

Everyone keeps talking about the Supreme Court like they're some infallible body of perfect government. They're not. They screwed up when they let corporations vote with their money, and they screwed up when they let the government force the purchase of health care.

I still can't believe people are actually alright with the individual mandate. So I'm slapped with a fine for not buying something I don't want? That's alright? That's what's legal in this country now? Maybe that IS constitutional, I don't know- I don't have a law degree. But I do know it sure as hell isn't right.

why are you not complaining about car insurance?

Actually, I do complain about car insurance. I'm a fan of the Big Metal Box Insurance Company, where you save your OWN money, as YOU see fit, and when something actually happens, there's no bureau-crap between you and YOUR money. Same applies to health. My money should be my money, and whether or not I have insurance or not should not change the price of my care. THAT'S what's really broken about the system we have,

So when you get into an accident and accidentally kill or maim someone you will have the millions of dollars they might win in a civil trial in that metal box of yours?

And what if you don't have healthcare and get injured in that accident and have millions of dollars in hospital bills -- who's going to pay for those? Oh that's right, other people who are paying for healthcare.

Everyone keeps talking about the Supreme Court like they're some infallible body of perfect government. They're not. They screwed up when they let corporations vote with their money, and they screwed up when they let the government force the purchase of health care.

I still can't believe people are actually alright with the individual mandate. So I'm slapped with a fine for not buying something I don't want? That's alright? That's what's legal in this country now? Maybe that IS constitutional, I don't know- I don't have a law degree. But I do know it sure as hell isn't right.

why are you not complaining about car insurance?

Because car insurance protects other people and it isn't required to own a vehicle, just to use it on public roads.

Health insurance only protects your health. You shouldn't be forced to have health insurance (at the insane prices that ACA is quoting) if you don't want or need it just by virtue of being alive and a US citizen.

If it's that controversial why isn't anyone filing court cases against it? That's the proper way to challenge the constitutionality of a law, not by speculation on blogs or misconstruing the facts on cable news shows.

From your question, I have to assume that either you don't live in the United States, are you're an uninformed citizen. Many legal challenges to the ACA have been filed. Otherwise, why would the Supreme Court have issued a ruling?

I understand that there have been many files against the ACA, I was referencing the decision of the SCOTUS -- why isn't that being challenged. Regardless, your point stands.

The Supreme Court is the court of last resort. There is literally no judicial venue in which to appeal their decision. That's why focus turns toward Congress.

I highly disagree with Citizens United, but I understand that it must be treated as constitutional until it is declared otherwise.

THIS, right here, is the actual truth of what you keep saying. When SCOTUS rules that a law is constitutional, it must be treated as constitutional in the application of the law. But that is not the same as the law actually being constitutional. You are conflating two very separate (albeit related) concepts.

Man, your country is messed up. In a nutshell - "We don't want our government to protect us (unless a tornado comes and blasts my home, then I demand that you help me!)"

I mean 'cause all rednecks living in tornado alley are clearly ACA opponents, right?

The certainly vote that way as a group.

I am curious as to where you might get your data about that.

After all, the ACA was not passed by referendum or popular vote, but by a rushed (many Congresspeople admitted not reading it at all before voting yay... or nay) vote in Congress along strictly partisan lines.

And I am really really sick of opinion of the ACA being turned into a litmus test on ideology.

One can be opposed to the ACA as a rushed, crappy, ill-begotten law without being opposed to the principle behind it.

Everyone keeps talking about the Supreme Court like they're some infallible body of perfect government. They're not. They screwed up when they let corporations vote with their money, and they screwed up when they let the government force the purchase of health care.

I still can't believe people are actually alright with the individual mandate. So I'm slapped with a fine for not buying something I don't want? That's alright? That's what's legal in this country now? Maybe that IS constitutional, I don't know- I don't have a law degree. But I do know it sure as hell isn't right.

why are you not complaining about car insurance?

Because car insurance protects other people and it isn't required to own a vehicle, just to use it on public roads.

Health insurance only protects your health. You shouldn't be forced to have health insurance (at the insane prices that ACA is quoting) if you don't want or need it just by virtue of being alive and a US citizen.

I believe in the state of Georgia, you can self-insure your car if you present them with a certificate of financial responsibility (or whatever they call it). Not sure what the requirements are. Probably having a certain level of wealth.

Everyone keeps talking about the Supreme Court like they're some infallible body of perfect government. They're not. They screwed up when they let corporations vote with their money, and they screwed up when they let the government force the purchase of health care.

I still can't believe people are actually alright with the individual mandate. So I'm slapped with a fine for not buying something I don't want? That's alright? That's what's legal in this country now? Maybe that IS constitutional, I don't know- I don't have a law degree. But I do know it sure as hell isn't right.

why are you not complaining about car insurance?

Because car insurance protects other people and it isn't required to own a vehicle, just to use it on public roads.

Health insurance only protects your health. You shouldn't be forced to have health insurance (at the insane prices that ACA is quoting) if you don't want or need it just by virtue of being alive and a US citizen.

I believe in the state of Georgia, you can self-insure your car if you present them with a certificate of financial responsibility (or whatever they call it). Not sure what the requirements are. Probably having a certain level of wealth.

Actually, I do complain about car insurance. I'm a fan of the Big Metal Box Insurance Company, where you save your OWN money, as YOU see fit, and when something actually happens, there's no bureau-crap between you and YOUR money. Same applies to health. My money should be my money, and whether or not I have insurance or not should not change the price of my care. THAT'S what's really broken about the system we have,

So when you get into an accident and accidentally kill or main someone you will have the millions of dollars they might win in a civil trial in that metal box of yours?

And what if you don't have healthcare and get injured in that accident and have millions of dollars in hospital bills -- who's going to pay for those? Oh that's right, other people who are paying for healthcare.

Like I said, that's the problem with the system- it's full of greed. If hospitals charged fairly, we wouldn't have million-dollar bills. And if we didn't have the insurance system we have today, people probably wouldn't sue for millions because they'd know they wouldn't get it. The broken system leads to the broken deeds.

People in the 30's were dead set against Social Security as well. People will typically vote against their own self-interest if enough tribalism and/or fear is used.

What's happened in America - and is happening increasingly in Europe - is that the right wing has convinced a lot of people that they're upper middle class (when they're not) or that they might very well soon be (they won't). Now these people support right-winged favorism of the rich, because they think it will benefit them, either now or very very soon. (It won't)

Maybe the just see liberalism as a dead-end option to personal prosperity.

If this is indeed on the level and was developed by anti-ACA folks, then I feel sorry for them, for they clearly missed or misunderstood the history lesson on civil disobedience, which is the refusal to obey certain laws, regulations, or government orders. If these opponents want to engage in civil disobediance against Obamacare, then don't sign up for health insurance and refuse to pay the penalty. But trying to take down the site to prevent others from willingly engaging in it is not the answer. In other words, you boycott the bus service that forces you to sit in the back -- you don't slash the tires and piss in the engine so that others can't ride it too.

I respectfully disagree. Protest is not only about informing the oppressor but informing the oppressor's consumers. Civil disobedience also includes sit ins (workplaces and diners) e.g. Informing the patrons of a diner of the inequality transgressions.

If you don't disrupt the healthcare transactions now then their is a lost opportunity to inform the public that the mandate is forcing people to purchase a service that is their right to go with out.

For the record I'm in favor of single payer healthcare but that does not mean that we should not address the protestors legitimate concerns about the mandate.

I think Henry David Thoreau would disagree with you. There's protesting and there's civil disobedience. I wouldn't term a hacktivist group hitting a loathsome organization like RIAA or MPAA with a DDoS attack as an act of civil disobedience, but I think it could be called a protest. This may seem like arguing pointless semantics, but it's not -- civil disobedience, according to Thoreau's reading, is different kind of protest, i.e. refusing to pay taxes to a government that supports slavery rather than attacking/protesting the people who own the slaves.

Everyone keeps talking about the Supreme Court like they're some infallible body of perfect government. They're not. They screwed up when they let corporations vote with their money, and they screwed up when they let the government force the purchase of health care.

I still can't believe people are actually alright with the individual mandate. So I'm slapped with a fine for not buying something I don't want? That's alright? That's what's legal in this country now? Maybe that IS constitutional, I don't know- I don't have a law degree. But I do know it sure as hell isn't right.

why are you not complaining about car insurance?

Actually, I do complain about car insurance. I'm a fan of the Big Metal Box Insurance Company, where you save your OWN money, as YOU see fit, and when something actually happens, there's no bureau-crap between you and YOUR money. Same applies to health. My money should be my money, and whether or not I have insurance or not should not change the price of my care. THAT'S what's really broken about the system we have,

So when you get into an accident and accidentally kill or main someone you will have the millions of dollars they might win in a civil trial in that metal box of yours?

And what if you don't have healthcare and get injured in that accident and have millions of dollars in hospital bills -- who's going to pay for those? Oh that's right, other people who are paying for healthcare.

It depends on who caused the accident. If it was the other guy then their auto insurance pays those bills. If it was you then you could potentially submit a claim to your insurance company for your medical bills.

Under ACA who pays the bills for the people that aren't legally living in this country when they

People in the 30's were dead set against Social Security as well. People will typically vote against their own self-interest if enough tribalism and/or fear is used.

What's happened in America - and is happening increasingly in Europe - is that the right wing has convinced a lot of people that they're upper middle class (when they're not) or that they might very well soon be (they won't). Now these people support right-winged favorism of the rich, because they think it will benefit them, either now or very very soon. (It won't)

I apologize, but what a load of paternalistic, snobbish garbage.

Implicit in your assertion is those people are just too dumb to know what their own situation in life is, not to mention what is good for them, and all those little people are just foolish, mindless sheep running headlong for the cliff cause their betters haven't headed them off. How insulting.

Everyone keeps talking about the Supreme Court like they're some infallible body of perfect government. They're not. They screwed up when they let corporations vote with their money, and they screwed up when they let the government force the purchase of health care.

I still can't believe people are actually alright with the individual mandate. So I'm slapped with a fine for not buying something I don't want? That's alright? That's what's legal in this country now? Maybe that IS constitutional, I don't know- I don't have a law degree. But I do know it sure as hell isn't right.

why are you not complaining about car insurance?

Because car insurance protects other people and it isn't required to own a vehicle, just to use it on public roads.

Health insurance only protects your health. You shouldn't be forced to have health insurance (at the insane prices that ACA is quoting) if you don't want or need it just by virtue of being alive and a US citizen.

I don't know the price of insurance bought through the ACA, but I was under the impression it was actually substantially lower than current policies. You're not Sean Hannity, are you?

I highly disagree with Citizens United, but I understand that it must be treated as constitutional until it is declared otherwise.

THIS, right here, is the actual truth of what you keep saying. When SCOTUS rules that a law is constitutional, it must be treated as constitutional in the application of the law. But that is not the same as the law actually being constitutional. You are conflating two very separate (albeit related) concepts.

I agree with you, there is no finality to a law's constitutionality, but the best judge of it would be the SCOTUS.

Everyone keeps talking about the Supreme Court like they're some infallible body of perfect government. They're not. They screwed up when they let corporations vote with their money, and they screwed up when they let the government force the purchase of health care.

I still can't believe people are actually alright with the individual mandate. So I'm slapped with a fine for not buying something I don't want? That's alright? That's what's legal in this country now? Maybe that IS constitutional, I don't know- I don't have a law degree. But I do know it sure as hell isn't right.

why are you not complaining about car insurance?

Actually, I do complain about car insurance. I'm a fan of the Big Metal Box Insurance Company, where you save your OWN money, as YOU see fit, and when something actually happens, there's no bureau-crap between you and YOUR money. Same applies to health. My money should be my money- no governments or corporations between us- and whether or not I have insurance or not should not change the price of my care. THAT'S what's really broken about the system we have.

Major problem: the cost of even one accident is enough to wipe out even the most careful savers if they're held liable. The medical fees alone from the other people in the accident would likely bankrupt any person. No rational person can honestly think they will save enough money to really 100% cover catastrophic problems.

Yeah no thats not how it works. It has been declared constitutional by the only authority that can do so, there is no room for argument unless the Supreme court itself makes it in a majority decision. "Wah wah dont like it" isn't grounds for constitutional opposition.

That's complete and utter bullshit. SCOTUS is not an all-powerful body whose decisions are always right. They can, and do, make mistakes in their rulings. While a SCOTUS ruling has the force of law (and should, because we need one legal standard even if there is disagreement), that doesn't mean that the majority position needs to be treated as sacrosanct. There is nothing wrong with presenting an argument saying "here is why I think that SCOTUS is wrong, and the law is actually unconstitutional".

Also your "wah wah don't like it" remark is a total strawman. At minimum, there are four legal experts in our country who have well-thought out reasoning as to why the law is unconstitutional. Dismissing any objection to the SCOTUS ruling as "wah wah don't like it" is exceptionally poor form.

I think (or optimistically hope) what he was trying to say is, you can't appeal or deny a law or court ruling just because you don't like it. You have to have a legal reason appeal something: e.g., overlooked evidence, clash with another law, a specific constitutional claim, etc.

Jails are full of people who "don't like" the court's decision. But they don't have a legal leg to stand on; their convictions are fair and square.

Because car insurance protects other people and it isn't required to own a vehicle, just to use it on public roads.

Health insurance only protects your health. You shouldn't be forced to have health insurance (at the insane prices that ACA is quoting) if you don't want or need it just by virtue of being alive and a US citizen.

Moreover, you have a choice about whether to own a car. And while the car insurance/ACA analogy is a little worn out, it does touch on (but ultimately misses) one of the biggest problems with the ACA, which is that it entrenches the insurance industry's role in health care.

One of the reasons health insurance is so expensive is because we use it for everything from well-visits to cold medications to intensive care hospitalizations. The equivalent would be if I used my car insurance whenever I had the oil changed. Or billed my car insurance for new brake pads. That would be absurd, because with car insurance, there is an understanding that only catastrophic events are covered. And so the fact that we pay out-of-pocket for car maintenance expenses provides an incentive to shop around for the best deal. It also helps keep car insurance relatively cheap.

But nobody shops around in the American health care system, at least not people with insurance, and the ACA will exacerbate that. Because I have high-deductible insurance and pay most health care expenses out of pocket, I often compare prices. And it's frustrating, because most of the time, the doctor or hospital can't immediately tell you what something will cost. They're not used to the question. Because...insurance!

People in the 30's were dead set against Social Security as well. People will typically vote against their own self-interest if enough tribalism and/or fear is used.

What's happened in America - and is happening increasingly in Europe - is that the right wing has convinced a lot of people that they're upper middle class (when they're not) or that they might very well soon be (they won't). Now these people support right-winged favorism of the rich, because they think it will benefit them, either now or very very soon. (It won't)

I apologize, but what a load of paternalistic, snobbish garbage.

Implicit in your assertion is those people are just too dumb to know what their own situation in life is, not to mention what is good for them, and all those little people are just foolish, mindless sheep running headlong for the cliff cause their betters haven't headed them off. How insulting.

Actually, most people...regardless of circumstance...are that damn dumb. Too dumb or fearful to have their own voice, they go towards the loudest noise in the herd.

Major problem: the cost of even one accident is enough to wipe out even the most careful savers if they're held liable. The medical fees alone from the other people in the accident would likely bankrupt any person. No rational person can honestly think they will save enough money to really 100% cover catastrophic problems.

Scroll up a bit please, someone already said something similar and I replied. I daresay you phrased it better, tho.

Everyone keeps talking about the Supreme Court like they're some infallible body of perfect government. They're not. They screwed up when they let corporations vote with their money, and they screwed up when they let the government force the purchase of health care.

I still can't believe people are actually alright with the individual mandate. So I'm slapped with a fine for not buying something I don't want? That's alright? That's what's legal in this country now? Maybe that IS constitutional, I don't know- I don't have a law degree. But I do know it sure as hell isn't right.

why are you not complaining about car insurance?

Because car insurance protects other people and it isn't required to own a vehicle, just to use it on public roads.

Health insurance only protects your health. You shouldn't be forced to have health insurance (at the insane prices that ACA is quoting) if you don't want or need it just by virtue of being alive and a US citizen.

I don't know the price of insurance bought through the ACA, but I was under the impression it was actually substantially lower than current policies. You're not Sean Hannity, are you?

I haven't checked but from what I understand it is still more than what a lot of people that don't get a substantial subsidy can afford. If you are living paycheck to paycheck and can't get subsidized pricing on insurance being forced to purchase insurance or pay a fine instead is like being punched in the gut.

I'm not even going to get into what this will do to most small businesses. The government seems to think that just because you have X dollars in revenue or Y full time employees you are able to shoulder these new taxes. Unfortunately most small businesses aren't able to do that because of the insane taxes they deal with already and the fact that revenue =/= profit.

Arbor researcher Marc Eisenbarth said there's no evidence Healthcare.gov has withstood any significant denial-of-service attacks since going live last month.

(Emphasis mine.) You might want to reword that! As written, you're implying that the site has been subject to significant DoS attacks and has thus far failed to successfully fend them off. You probably want "suffered", or maybe "been targeted by", in there instead.

I highly disagree with Citizens United, but I understand that it must be treated as constitutional until it is declared otherwise.

THIS, right here, is the actual truth of what you keep saying. When SCOTUS rules that a law is constitutional, it must be treated as constitutional in the application of the law. But that is not the same as the law actually being constitutional. You are conflating two very separate (albeit related) concepts.

The point underlying all of this is that there is no such thing as objective constitutionality. There is no absolute truth in any set of social laws, they will always be subjective due to interpretation and situational variance. Treating the Constitution as an inviolate beacon of legal truth, as if it were a physical law, is a misplaced trust. We do the best we can with the words we agree to live by and the people we choose to arbitrate those words.

Man, your country is messed up. In a nutshell - "We don't want our government to protect us (unless a tornado comes and blasts my home, then I demand that you help me!)"

I mean 'cause all rednecks living in tornado alley are clearly ACA opponents, right?

The certainly vote that way as a group.

I am curious as to where you might get your data about that.

After all, the ACA was not passed by referendum or popular vote, but by a rushed (many Congresspeople admitted not reading it at all before voting yay... or nay) vote in Congress along strictly partisan lines.

And I am really really sick of opinion of the ACA being turned into a litmus test on ideology.

One can be opposed to the ACA as a rushed, crappy, ill-begotten law without being opposed to the principle behind it.

The last election was framed as a referendum on Obamacare/ACA. Romney ran on its repeal, and the Tea Party certainly did, as well as many other conservative Republicans. Where did these opposition candidates win? the South and Midwest. I live smack in the middle of this and got to hear all the bluster. The large majority of ACA opposition was not nuanced, reasoned debate (of where there is much that could be had, the ACA is not a great law, just better than what we had), it was essentially framed as "Obama is sending in death panels! He's going to steal your health insurance, and if you don't have that, he's just going to stick you in a hospital you can't leave!" that was the level of discussion. So yes, the people with the voices and the votes most certainly fall into that category. Much to the detriment of all of us, including those of us like you and me that would have liked to have had a serious conversation about health care.

Maybe someone can explain to me then what it means in the U.S. Constitution to "promote the general Welfare" then, because it sure seems to me that having accessible, affordable, continuous health care is very important to the general Welfare of the people.

The argument is that Obamacare makes the situation worse for many, many more people than it helps, while doing little or nothing to assuage the actual COST of providing healthcare in the first place. It effectively functions as a price cap, which produces shortages, as opposed to a subsidy, like what we do with agriculture, which produces oversupply and low prices.

Contrary to popular belief, NO ONE is arguing that we shouldn't help people get healthcare. They're saying that Obamacare does more harm than good towards that goal. And with all the issues - even beyond the website - of people being dropped, etc. and what is yet to come when the employer mandates hit next Fall, it's getting clearer and clearer that there may be something to it.

I suggest these folks step up the DOS attack a notch, by enrolling themselves, then smoking and drinking and consuming so many trans-fats that they require so much medical care that it overloads the system.

Actually, I do complain about car insurance. I'm a fan of the Big Metal Box Insurance Company, where you save your OWN money, as YOU see fit, and when something actually happens, there's no bureau-crap between you and YOUR money. Same applies to health. My money should be my money, and whether or not I have insurance or not should not change the price of my care. THAT'S what's really broken about the system we have,

So when you get into an accident and accidentally kill or main someone you will have the millions of dollars they might win in a civil trial in that metal box of yours?

And what if you don't have healthcare and get injured in that accident and have millions of dollars in hospital bills -- who's going to pay for those? Oh that's right, other people who are paying for healthcare.

Like I said, that's the problem with the system- it's full of greed. If hospitals charged fairly, we wouldn't have million-dollar bills. And if we didn't have the insurance system we have today, people probably wouldn't sue for millions because they'd know they wouldn't get it. The broken system leads to the broken deeds.

Taking away the ACA doesn't remove insurance companies from the equation, and the only way to directly control medical pricing would be to nationalize the market. If you want to remove greed, you go single payer and have a directly regulated system, because not being greedy and being a for profit institution are at polar opposites.

That solves your problems of cost and removes mandatory insurance. Of course I would not be opposed to single payer, but man oh man the people whining about the ACA would kick it up to 11 if the US attempted it.

Major problem: the cost of even one accident is enough to wipe out even the most careful savers if they're held liable. The medical fees alone from the other people in the accident would likely bankrupt any person. No rational person can honestly think they will save enough money to really 100% cover catastrophic problems.

Scroll up a bit please, someone already said something similar and I replied. I daresay you phrased it better, tho.

Sorry, I had missed the new page. I understand your idealism, but it isn't the way the world works. Unwinding those issues one step at a time is definitely a worthwhile goal, but starting with health care greed is definitely better than starting with insurance. Otherwise you will end up with a major gap where many citizens go bankrupt while trying to fix other parts of the system.

In an ideal world, though, I would totally be ok with doing something where we limited accident liability to something like $100k, and anyone who could prove that they could pay $100k cash could be certified as not requiring insurance. But there is a whole lot that would need to be fixed between here and there.

Everyone keeps talking about the Supreme Court like they're some infallible body of perfect government. They're not. They screwed up when they let corporations vote with their money, and they screwed up when they let the government force the purchase of health care.

I still can't believe people are actually alright with the individual mandate. So I'm slapped with a fine for not buying something I don't want? That's alright? That's what's legal in this country now? Maybe that IS constitutional, I don't know- I don't have a law degree. But I do know it sure as hell isn't right.

why are you not complaining about car insurance?

Actually, I do complain about car insurance. I'm a fan of the Big Metal Box Insurance Company, where you save your OWN money, as YOU see fit, and when something actually happens, there's no bureau-crap between you and YOUR money. Same applies to health. My money should be my money, and whether or not I have insurance or not should not change the price of my care. THAT'S what's really broken about the system we have,

So when you get into an accident and accidentally kill or main someone you will have the millions of dollars they might win in a civil trial in that metal box of yours?

And what if you don't have healthcare and get injured in that accident and have millions of dollars in hospital bills -- who's going to pay for those? Oh that's right, other people who are paying for healthcare.

It depends on who caused the accident. If it was the other guy then their auto insurance pays those bills. If it was you then you could potentially submit a claim to your insurance company for your medical bills.

Under ACA who pays the bills for the people that aren't legally living in this country when they

Maybe someone can explain to me then what it means in the U.S. Constitution to "promote the general Welfare" then, because it sure seems to me that having accessible, affordable, continuous health care is very important to the general Welfare of the people.

The argument is that Obamacare makes the situation worse for many, many more people than it helps, while doing little or nothing to assuage the actual COST of providing healthcare in the first place. It effectively functions as a price cap, which produces shortages, as opposed to a subsidy, like what we do with agriculture, which produces oversupply and low prices.

Contrary to popular belief, NO ONE is arguing that we shouldn't help people get healthcare. They're saying that Obamacare does more harm than good towards that goal. And with all the issues - even beyond the website - of people being dropped, etc. and what is yet to come when the employer mandates hit next Fall, it's getting clearer and clearer that there may be something to it.

Uh, you are very, very in the wrong here. There is a non-trivial percentage of the Tea Party specifically that subscribes to the Randian vision that if you can't afford health care, you don't deserve it. And have said so point-blank.

I agree a single-payer system would be preferable, but this is still a step up from what we had.

I highly disagree with Citizens United, but I understand that it must be treated as constitutional until it is declared otherwise.

THIS, right here, is the actual truth of what you keep saying. When SCOTUS rules that a law is constitutional, it must be treated as constitutional in the application of the law. But that is not the same as the law actually being constitutional. You are conflating two very separate (albeit related) concepts.

Not sure where you're getting this from, but it's not correct. If SCOTUS rules something to be constitutional then it's constitutional, period. That's one of the Court's primary functions; there is no higher arbiter when it comes to the supreme law of the land.